A Villanelle

Hurt people hurt people, or so they say,  

And ignore the hurt from the kindly face,  

And she arrives, once more, where she once lay  

But she builds: a feeble warmth, every day,  

And sometimes falters, even falls from grace:

Hurt people hurt people, or so they say  

And sometimes, nothing seems to ever change,  

But wounds heal and scars fade without a trace,  

And she arrives, once more, where she once lay  

Begins again, once more into the fray,  

And so it goes, and grows, and now with pace.  

Hurt people hurt people, or so they say  

But her love, her hopes, her dreams, now betray  

Perhaps there is no room for her within this space  

And she arrives, once more, where she once lay  

And she yearns for her mind to disobey  

And she yearns for some safety to embrace  

Hurt people hurt people, or so they say  

When she arrives, once more, where she once lay. 

After Ezra Pound

The original:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

----------------------------------------

Mine:

In any Time of the Day

The apparition of these faces in the scene:

Boxes on a small, black screen. 

In a Park of the City

The apparition of these faces in the sun:

Nerf darts from a bright, toy gun. 

In a Home of the Family

The apparition of these faces in the room:

Statues, on a shelf of gloom.

In a Workplace of the Many

The apparition of these faces in the office:

Phone call voices seek solace.

In a Terminal of the Airport

The apparition of reflections in the haze:

Shadows on a cold, fading glaze.

_ _ _ _

Defies

Mess and silence

Chaos and peace

Accepts

All? 

Denies

Nothing? 

Always 

Centred 

72 hours

The set up begins

Winches, lights, action

The rising swing skims

The very border of the sky

They arrive, the throngs, 

To shriek and roar

Ready to dodgem wrongs

Feeling they can fly

The pack up is complete

Quiet, dawn, winches

Leaving imprints of feet;

An incandescent goodbye. 

Symbiotic

Space without growth

Is distance

Growth without energy

Is death

Energy without time

Is chaos

Time without you

Is empty

You without me

Is 

Arms wide open

Arms wide
Trust fall
Heart tide
It flows

And sighs
Are now
A sign
Of how
One can
Feel all

And fall
On days 
When it
Might all
Cave in

It ebbs
It flows
Arms wide
Catch all

The Sea

You are everything
I want to be:
Beautiful and caring, 
Wild and free... 

Whispers borne
Ceaselessly
Crescendo forms
But then, tranquility. 

My mind, it stills. 
My eyes, they close. 
And only then I see
How you could come home to me. 

Any 4-letter word

 I  - - - -  you;

The space between, 

Both liminal and concrete, 

Exists. 

During a piano concerto 

On the mezzanine

We embraced, for a while,

Before and during and after

Then time resumed

And Bernard, for once, 

Never even knew 

How close he had been  

To something good, and infinite, and true. 

Euphoric

Windows down
Hair whipping
Music loud
Sun spilling
Joy filling
Me
From top to toe

Clear road straight ahead
Miles melt to meet a friend
Sax cheerleads and cements
A snapshot perfect moment - 
A fortunate series of events. 

Passing

Gasping for breath

Marbles lost

Quaking 

Palpitation 

Seconds 

Minutes

An infestation 

Of wasps

"Full of 

Scorpions

Is my mind, 

Dear wife!" 

3am

Time is precious, so use it well,

Two spheres collide, you and I,

Or waste it waiting for dust to settle

Time is forever, and finite,

We contain such multitudes. 

Know the value of standing up to fight. 

Butterfly

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

In every claim to ties that break

As I step in to chaos, fear,

And slowly, my own self, remake.

The mind-forg'd manacles I see

In each habit, unexamined,

As I become what was meant to be,

And my self is reimagined.

The mind-forg'd manacles I feel

In every thought they try to take, 

As I reach towards what is real,

And my new self takes shape. 

Part iii

It's everyone's first time alive

No map, no guidebook, no failsafe

No-one can tell from the outside 

What is intended or what is mistake.

Each step propels us forward 

Past to present, present to untold

futures emerging, building, forging,

Each day moves us ahead, no stalling.

Acceptance inevitable, hope stumbles 

But slowly forms. A fleet of fireflies

Distract us from all our troubles:

No-one makes it out alive...

Part B

 It's our 

first time 

alive

Pressure drop

Deep breath

Time stops

Thoughts race

Cold sweats

Blank face

Words fail

You freeze

Face pale

No-one 

makes it 

out alive

Part 1

 It's everyone's

First time alive

Bradbury foretold

Little butterflies could hold

The secret to time's folds

Trace it back

Step off the track

And life lines surely crack 

Each moment carries

The weight of all worries

And time, it never tarries

So now you see

Every step made free

Impacts on time's fluid tree

No-one makes

It out alive

Hope - still

Hope is bloody-knuckled and bruised
From punching the wall in an attempt
To break it down. 

Hope knows the only way through
Is through

And time heals
And connections feed
And nothing is ever truly lost

Hope is certain

Even when nothing else is... 

Unison

In unison
As one
We breathe
We sleep
We rise
We breathe
We sleep
We rise
As one
In unison


We are one
But more
One plus some
Greater than one
More than.
Better.
As one,
But not one.

As old as time

Your throne
As you're thrown
Disintegrates
And your bitterly gained power
Obliterates
Any mercy
Or understanding
You once held.


You realise,
far
too
l
a
t
e,
far
too
l    o    n    g            f     r     o     m            n     o     w
how
little
you truly have.

The Seeker

Substantially transparent, I fear,
no deeper meanings,
almost not here.

Can you discern
the difference between
a reacting rage
or your infinite stage?

Within / is distinct /
From / Without

False anger
You rail
You shout.

A Sorting

Four houses,
All alike in quality,
Explain so much of human quandary.

Earth, a badger, stable and true,
Air, a raven, whose mind through stars grew,
Water, a serpent, with ambition and grit,
And fire, a lion, can consume all of it.

Simple boxes - dangerous
Narrow minds do fall
With a whim, a breath, a sigh,
Nothing

is left

at all.

Fall

lies lie like autumn leaves
strewn across pavements
damp with tears
things are not
always
all right
in the
end
in the
negative space
things are sometimes unfair
the basis for comparison
is not always clear
lies lie like autumn leaves

Wonder

Eyes open, curtain rises,
Softly spoken, memorised lines,
Rivulets
of
sparkling
emotion
coast
unhindered
at
the
opus
Here, now,
Brand new creation

Unique but billions were before,
Palimpsest of page, stage, person, life.

tin cans in the dark

I whisper,
string vibrates,
you falter,
but smile at the Fates -
who frown -
because modern heroes are here,
but they cower,
and buckle,
       (might break)
before fire
consumes with a kiss
and forges steel,
tempered with valour,
but imbued with
agape
  caritas
    mettā.

You dance.

Return

A return to form
aspires to erase
all past pain,
a cruel phase.

Lysander spoke true;
this course never did run smooth.

Surface

     Words weighted,
          looks layered;
 a world of meaning
 in a dip of the head
 or a slip of the eyes
away from the cause
 of feeling and being
           so
            incredibly...
     
                 
fine.

A fleeting glance of esperance

A fleeting glance of esperance 
on a mother's face
until no, all hopes are dashed,
like Lady Macbeth's baby brains.

Stark contrast

Night and day.
Two unsustainable wastes.
One - hard-working, tireless,
exhaustion, no peace, low grades.
The other, apathy personified,
gifted perhaps, but none of the drive.
One - a high-flier, determination
goes far.
The other, aims lower
so lowest expectations
are never
unrealised.

A world of forms*

The only truth in my eyes
is the truth within my mind:

A world of forms before me,
such as Plato could merely dream,
is then shown to be a pleasant kind
of childish make-believe.

The only truth in my mind,
is a truth beyond my eyes:

A sea of tendrils before me,
feelings from which I glean
an abstract set of show and tell,
love, hate, and all between.

*absolutely not a textpoem.

A moment from the lips

A bad choice made, impulsively,
leads to humiliation, publically,
despite the knowledge that you are still
incomplete
yet to experience much.

Your behaviour, which belies your age, perhaps
is a true measure of maturity and sense,
so I make an n.b, p.s, or post-it note reminder to me:
'here are young dreams, tread softly'.

After 'Tell all the Truth'

Hear all the Truth but hear it slant --

Belief in Honesty lies

Too opaque for your tripping tongue

The words you say surprise

As Rain to the Windows lashed

With cruel description flawed

The Words must crash Violently

And any false One be outlawed --

Game

Too close to Nov 11th, this:
immersive surround sound,
hyper-real graphics of guns,
naturalistic narratives,
all devised, he tells me, to engage.
Better, he says, than real life.
In a real war, she says,
you would not last.

Some angels would do better
without even one halo.

danger

ideas fly around;
fireworks outside reflect
connections being made in mind.
One remains: critical.

rain

Cocooned, wrapped up, ensconced.
Faces and surfaces become more pronounced;
all the leaves falling from
the wet, black, bough.


~nod to Mr Pound.

Can You Not, Thanks.

Jeremy Hunt, some say you're a --
very nice man really,
(irony)
but
interference
in a realm
that is so far removed from yours
is, simply,
refused:

womb belongs to woman
and she will never allow legislation
to become part of her decision.
Your supposedly elevated status
should never allow you to
invade
this most private of spheres.
You will find your approach blocked
by any who feel
their body
=
their choice.

Hope

There is time, in the day,
to create, produce, incredible change;
the smallest detail can give
shelter from the rain.

Inspired by Emily Dickinson's 'Hope is the thing with feathers'

Epic growing

An epic story is waiting to emerge,
if given time, energy and a certain verve.

The days pass as one,
get up, get around, home again,
feelings insufferable,
words - empty - few -
gone. Spiral.

Ass u me

One facet, professionally,
does not dictate or indicate
any further aspect of me.
The blood that boils because
of your words
is blood that feels
deeper than any facade you see.
Disappointed, I ask:
Do you even have a clue?
Or is yours a skein,
words arranged like a house of cards?
An image saved, portraying a mask.

Fragmentation*

The curb grabs the dark
and you're right,
this city's alive
with hopes, dreams,
from the CEO up high
to the homeless in the park
and
every day, heroes walk among us.

There are many ways our souls decay;
you can theorise, hypothesise, or turn your life around,
and not just twist your face away,
but your soul is made heavy by the pressure of a goal
that is unrealistic or just plain stupid because of course,
what does it mean to be rich and why does it matter anyway?

Your greatness will be a sight for sore eyes to behold so
scale your mountain, leap far, and above all, be bold.


*inspired by the words of Kate Tempest's show, Brand New Ancients.

acerbic aftertaste

You say you've changed,
I don't see how.
but
destiny has become,
at once, too loud.

Your clipping words
puncture thick skin
Seen it all -
no apology, again.

Guest post

For the first time ever, here we have a guest post transcribed from a text by the esteemed @tomtomandgo:

Takes the time away from other thoughts
And intrudes on you from night-time.
Did you forget?
Subconscious is always awake.
Always thinking.
Always making connections to disassociate from the sane self.
It's silent.
But now it jabbers excitedly.
And you realise.
The thing that's been bothering you isn't cumbersome or negative.
It's not apathy to be in love with what you are not what you should be.

Empty vessel

Not In Service,
a terrible indictment of the human condition,
closed to passengers of any disposition,
a satirical statement of the greatest importance,
or - not.

Absence

The moment the bulb pops,
there a second, gone the next,
moment in time that's hard to define but finally you
truly understand; this,
an epic event,
irrespective of light.

Frozen

An elastic band stretched
to
breaking
point makes me freeze - fear -
my back -
will snap -
and I will be -

- stuck.

Overlay

Perspex drawing,
laid over lines
from yesterday,
resembles not -
resembles still.

Age defies us
with every day.
Our time marks us,
as we become
grave.

Poet, madman,
Shakespeare knew and
summarised well:

"To die: to sleep"

'Pretty Little Liars'

Drama, personified,
certified,
broken images and
unreal cities of
an ersatz world,
bildungsroman in a visual form,
a seed of truth in every lie?
Bizarre fiction, or the norm?

blog wordle

Concrete nouns

Ellipsis;
the mark of a superfluous word
to be understood by the context.

Invitation;
the mark of esteem and respect
to be understood by the context.

Hug;
the mark of feeling, compassion
to be understood by the context.

Context;
the parts of something that prec-
ede and follow a word or passage.

The Waste Land*

1. The Burial of the Dead

piercing pain and numbness

crossroads

hope/despair

joy/grief

dichotomies between feelings and

extremes of being

and

the narrowing of possibilities to

one

'In the mountains, there you feel free,'

you would frighten others with your anguish and your heart howls

'What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter'

and we are all the same.

Slam*

There's a certain slam of poetry
that echoes in my ears;
it's got metaphor and semaphore,
gestures which can shift gears.

The topics tackled vary
although the most common theme remains;
there's nothing words can't solve
(except those grand things that stay the same).

There's an idea here; Ophelia,
a troubling state of mind,
antonym to all interiors;
'dreamers often lie.'

*not a text poem.

Flashback,

warm nights.
Cold morning, low mist, ice.
Sharp, clean smell and
people.
Some kind of appetite.

Atmospheric pressure means

that one day you will be old.
Time will steal itself from you,
or you from yourself.
Your luggage will be dense
with possibilities
and consequence.

'broken images' T.S Eliot

home
leave(s) in darkness
arrive in darkness
cyclical structures
life imitates art
elegiac.

///////////////

juggling with fire,
spinning plates,
incredible feats of
heroics -
a walk in the park,
comparatively,
when dealing with certain
histrionics.

Dinosaurs

There must be a better way than this,
a crowded bridge to a path by a relic
of our past
juxtaposed
with those alive.

Broken images

How to explain, so you understand?
Broken images coalesce become sea sky island.

How to show you, sans telling?
Simple pleasures are ones most missed,
Heart-dwelling.

Perspective

What is there but time
& the attempt to fill it well?
What is there but time
& our minds, ourselves?
What is there but time
& an endless sky
and an endless well;

a small boat under stars, endless;
time without,
without our selves.

Comfort

In arms of angel comfort here I see
a breath on the air
& a frozen city.
In arms of angel comfort here I glide,
amidst the blanket faces & dreams
of deep night.

Snow day

White seagulls and black crows

perched

on snowy gutters.

Two bus drivers plotting

an

early

journeys

home.

Nose frozen clean away.

Wrong type.

There's nothing more annoying than a-
well, no, that's not, strictly speaking, true.
There aren't many things - or - people,
or maybe, types of people, more annoying than -
no - not types, that's not right -
The most annoying person I know is a -
not to say that - oh, never mind.
Pedants. I don't like them.

Buoyancy

White&pink balloons(without),
sweet homilies, big blooms(within).
No doubt.

A child weaves
tween tall trousered trees&,
barely noticed neath the tea tray,
plays.

> Simple instructions

Close your mouth,
open your mind,
Who knows what you'll find.
See, imagine,
out of time.

Tempus fugit.

Tempus fugit!
Same, relatively, but older,
a collection of
fits starts tricks smarts.
Whole mind in body,
in
complete
alive
ruinous/cascade/falling through.

Three words.

"You may begin."
No gun,
Just tick tock nerves.
Sea of bent heads.
Minds through ink onto lines.
Only you can help yourself,
last week,
open textbook with TV.
Clocks tick, pens flick, life, this.

Pyre

So, have you seen her?
She has made many mad,
unable to describe her magnetism or milky skin.
Always just a little too far to touch,
even when resting in trees.

Follower

Foreign invading space, my space,
claimed, just - get out, stranger,
I'm busy, I'm going, I don't know you -
just leave me alone.

Now

I blinked,
a year passed,
or a decade.
How do you measure time?
In minutes, hours, days?
Or faces, moments, followed trails?
A blink, sideways eight,
ouroboros, heartbeat.

Hot.

Hot head,
cold feet,
can't stay still,
fidget,
metaphor creeps.
Bottom drops as muscles relax,
falling,
suddenly galling,
Waiting for tomo morning.

Life for love.

Can you stake your life on your love?
Suddenly, it all makes sense,
when I saw you crying and in distress I -

…thought nothing of it.

Un(expected/wanted) news,
a turn of the wheel,
a crash of the cymbals,
soft words strong hug brave face -
onwards, the show must go on.

Onwards.
You stake your life on your love,
cross fingers, faith holds, hope lingers.

You stake your life on your love every day.


*not a textpoem.

Stop, look, listen.

Stop spending time,
start using it.

Stop fearing life,
start living it.

Don't look for shadows,
walk in light.

Listen to your heart,
release your sorrows.

Read

She was an avid reader;
of books,
of people,
of faces and tones.

She missed nothing, except -
It was lined on her face,
written on her heart, and

- her sadness enveloped her.

A listener.

Have you been here long?
Did you always sing that song?
I saw you once,
as if in dream,
knocking on a door of make-believe,
moonlight caressing your trusty steed.

Cope.

We have evolved
so that we can change,
adapt ourselves (though never our chains)
and move the Earth to suit our needs
and make the Earth adapt to our greed…

Snow

Falling slopes,
loss of sanity
gain of hopes
against gravity.

The glassy kind of memory
- truths -
the cutting kind
when you mistake your head
for your heels.

Sometimes.

Sometimes there are no words,
in times of great emotion,
surprise,
sadness,
or joy.
Sometimes, there are merely breaths
and moments,
distilled drops of memory.

Riddle

Heads bowed, shying,
from shining yellow
to drying, brown,
shells that carry the sound
of no mortal sea,
a series of swords in the ground,
swaying slightly.

Moment

Natural treasure,
The sea gleams, crashes and roars.
Caressing giant.

Tests

They take us by surprise, the bad days.
Before we know it, we've succumbed
to bad temper,
excuses,
escapist fantasies.
But there's hope,
don't forget,
&love,
&grace.

Millions

Dark times of night/time.
Solid sky, inky eyes,
there's water flowing there.
Nothing wretched, nothing gained,
pirouette
again,
again,
again.

Interim

all i want; to write!
close the world out of my mind
final justified.

For a friend.

Shift your perceptions.
Open your mind.
Just being a (my) parent
does not make you right.
No, you listen for once,
see that you’re bored,
or stressed at work,
tired at home.

/

You "gave me your smarts"
but I didn’t think you meant this,
I thought you’d retain some
for the day-to-day bits.

Denouement.

A mortarboard flies
in company, memories,
middle, start, and end.

solvitur ambulando.

Solve this now.

There's a breath
A movement
in my mind
and I find
a tranquil
shiver on
stormy sea.

I can walk.
Slow my heart.
Think, now, of
tomorrow.

Solvitur
by walking.

Sword-edge

Suffocating, tease,
10 months I waited, can't breathe.
Midsummer-no-dream.

~*~

Sweetwrapper bookmarks
my place in this immense plot
lost upon your desk.

404

File not found, I see
here is where my heart should be.
Instead – I find –– blank.

Just right.

just pick up a pen and write.
pick up a subject, speak your mind.
just write. convince and cajole, tear apart and make whole, show me, write.
Otherwise? It'll be dead and stuck in your mind so pick up a pen
rhyme it again
speak from your heart
and use your mind
just write.

Blocked.

There's a haze over everything,
an impenetrable
indefinable
inability
to string.
Two.
Words.
Together.
This is a rundown show
of unknown force
FORCing me to.Stop.

Twirl.

Falter,

slither softly,

in the light

of a silver slipper

of a moon.

Saunter,

smile tightly,

'neath the boughs,

watch her skin glow

as she moves.

Almost falling.

Do you ever almost fall?
Find yourself on a bright, sunny day,
smelling damp earth like
after rain?
Instead of walking,
you are still
a little back garden
full of brambles and ivy,
not
even
aware
as you
fall into
memories
until it is far too late.

Profile.

The smell of cut grass
follows you everywhere
old-fashioned lawn mower
ear protectors.
Career tools.

Tweentime

Tweentime.

Crisp air,
mighty stars,
and dreams.

Hope, breathe.

time∞

Cusp, space, time,
all and nothing,
mine,
a sip, a dribble, one line
of infinity.
Brown paper,
unravelling twine.

tired

asleep/ sleepy/ sleepiest/

realm of silence and 

reticence.

now i hibernate

now i am myself

now i oscillate

between awake

and dream-stealth.

Stranger walk.

In a second I can tell something that could reveal

I know you well.

One intake of breath

can reveal if you shower daily,

smoke,

maybe

your last meal.

Poignant 

stranger.

While being consoled.

You tell me to be still

and I yearn to destroy it all.

I want to hear breaking glass,

push you away,

and yet,

to break your fall.

Curtains.

Red, white, black,

these are the colours of the stage.

There is nothing the actors lack

and once the curtain 

rises, falls, rises,

no way to go back,

except to be it again.

Jarring.

As strange as it sounds

I don't want excitement,

it's too loud.

Can you hear me?

I want to walk slowly

and enjoy the day.

I want to see clearly

though I may not know the way.

Picture perfect

Twilight tremors onwards,

faster than I can run,

faces made immortal

with the cadence of the sun.

Caught in flashes,

forests frozen,

sky a steely grey.

This is a photo-finish,

& with it light of day.

Riddle.

They say ask me no questions

and I will tell no lies.

What am I? 

A sphinx, a phoenix, a centaur

or one of a million myths,

and all of them,

but newer,

and none.

Reflecting.

For 17minutes on

the 17:20

I studied your

reflection

as you studied your

free paper.

You made no move

to hide the illicit call

to your lover

overheard

/

surreptitiously by

the whole carriage.

When your gf called,

we heard the lies as

they tumbled, then stalled.

Your reflected

doppelganger

was fleshier 

/

than you.

Winter blues.

I saw the blue lights.

Her room, last night

they flickered

and danced on your skin

I blink.

I'm here again,

surrounded by blue lights

and enveloped by sirens.

How?

How do you live with the grey?

Shades of coping,

day by day?

How can you stand

the ambiguity?

Without closure,

Without of sanity.

How do you dream?

In b&w?

Or in between?